


Unwelcome

by tatooedlaura



Series: Life [41]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 19:19:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9399188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: Shopping carts belong in grocery stores ...





	

“How you holding up?”

Mulder, feeling like he was about to die of exhaustion, gave her a grin, “pretty good.”

She laughed heartily in his face, “you are a big, fat liar. Five more minutes, then we’re heading back to the room so you can collapse in the comfort of your pajamas.”

“We haven’t even been out to the plane yet.”

“It’s a plane, Mulder. We’ve been in plenty.” And wouldn’t you know it, he instantly hit her with those damn, sad, pathetically unfightable eyes and she dropped her head in concession without even mustering a fight, “fine. We’ll do the plane, then we’ll go.”

“Doctor’s orders?”

“Doctor’s orders.”

“Fair enough.”

She picked up dinner from yet another wonderfully eclectic diner, having assisted Mulder in polishing off last night the BBQ that was supposed to feed them today. It was salad time again but she also bought a heaping mound of cheese fries and chocolate pie for dessert, “I am going to try pie again. Maybe it’s changed.”

“Since last week when you didn’t like it?”

“This has homemade whipped cream and peanut butter in it. I feel remiss if I don’t try it again.”

With a chuckle in her direction, he carefully balanced the bags on his lap, “we will find you a pie you like if it kills us.”

“It might take a while.”

“I’m game if you are.”

Heading back into evening traffic, “bring on the pie.”

The face she made while biting into that piece of pie was priceless, “what is this? This is terrible. It’s like warm, congealed pudding or a weird liquefied then re-solidified Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.” Looking at him with a pinched look to her mouth, “you like this?”

He happily slid her piece towards him, digging in his fork, “damn right. I’ll just finish yours.”

After a long drink of tea, “I should really just stick with cupcakes.”

“I’ll eat your pie anytime, Scully.” He went red instantly, then grinned, chocolate covering his teeth, “that totally came out wrong.”

She simply rubbed her bare foot against his under the little table they were eating at, taking another long drink while he intently stared at her throat as she swallowed.

Both knew what she was doing and neither one of them minded.

&&&&&&&&&&

She woke up at 3am when Mulder groaned in his sleep. Realizing he had rolled onto his stitches, she coaxed him back on his side and still sound asleep, his hand wandering from her waist, under her shirt, towards her armpit, thankfully stopping on her ribcage, fingers on her back, thumb dangerously close to the underside of her breast. He stroked her skin a few times before he settled again, breathing deep, having no idea what he was doing to the woman sharing his bed.

Scooting closer to him, making his hand fall down behind her, she smiled into the dark, burying her head against his neck and drifting off.

&&&&&&&&&

Stormy weather rolled in sometime during the night and the heaviness of the clouds, combined with the rhythmic drone of rain, their room stayed in shadow and they stayed asleep much longer than they’d planned. It wasn’t until a crack of thunder shook the room that Mulder opened his eyes, first wondering where he was, then wondering where exactly his hand was. Turns out, after a moment of contemplation, that Scully was lying on her stomach and his hand was nestled between her shoulder blades. Stroking his finger once, then twice, over the two nubbins nearest his middle finger, he felt her stirring but continued, her soft skin overriding his sense of chivalry that should have stopped him and allowed her to keep sleeping.

“Muller?”

“Shh. It’s just me.” She shushed, except for the quiet ‘mmm-mmm’ that penetrated his ears. Leaning a little closer, “that good?”

Not answered, hovering in the middle of murky twilight, he was just about to expand his reach to more spine and skin when the thunder cracked so loud he jumped and Scully screamed, “Mulder! I need your help!” into the pillow.

“Shhh, hey, Scully, I’m right here. Everything’s fine. It’s me. Everything’s fine.” Repeating that a few times, hand rubbing her back harder, the sensory touch hopefully soothing her quicker than his voice, “wake up. It’s me.”

Flipping her head over, she blinked a few times in his direction before finally focusing on his face, his dark eyes, his stubbled chin, “you’re not Duane Barry.”

“I am not Duane Barry.” Bringing his hand from under her shirt to the back of her neck, noticing her skin clammy and her hairline damp with sweat, “are you okay?”

Trying her best to slow her racing pulse, she took a deep breath, sitting up, letting his hand slip from her neck, down her chest and land in her lap. Another jarring thunder boom followed a bright flash of lightning but she didn’t even blink, her nightmare quieting quickly under the gaze of her partner. “I’m fine.”

Mulder propped himself on one elbow, moving his hand deeper into the diamond space of her crossed legs, gripping her ankle under the hem of her pants, “I didn’t know you still had dreams about him.”

The statement’s sad undertone made her frown, her forehead creasing, “I have dreams about them all, Mulder. What did you expect? That I’d simply forget abductions and ice picks and axes and the myriad of shit crazy people have put me through because time has passed?” The frown now switched to a look of complete incredulity as she ran her fingers up his arm, “Mulder, you share a bed with me, you share a bed with my psyche.”

His hand shifted from her ankle to the crease of her knee, the fold between thigh and calf warm around his fingers, “but why right now? The storm? We’ve had storms on this vacation and none of them have triggered nightmares.” Her second-long hesitation made his heart drop, “how many dreams do you have about them?”

Scully hated to say it but couldn’t lie, “mostly they are the only ones I remember so it feels like all my dreams are about them. I don’t wake up too often anymore or if I do, I just wait it out, then go back to sleep when I feel better.”

Mulder was now sitting up, cast tangled in sheets, hand still in its spot, “you don’t have good dreams?”

“It’s fine, Mulder, I promise.”

The back of his free hand ran down her cheek softly, “why don’t you wake me up?”

That stupid, solitary tear she hadn’t even known she was producing dropped slowly through his fingers and she couldn’t believe she was about to confess, “because I can’t bear to add any more burden to that beautiful soul of yours.”

His hand wound around to the back of her neck, which was rapidly taking the place of her lower back as his favorite place to keep his palm. Drawing her towards him, he kissed the salty track of her tear, “next time, wake me up, please.”

Nodding against his lips, pressed now to the soft skin beneath her ear, she began contemplating returning the kiss when suddenly, the large window beside the bed shattered, wind whipping through the room along with sheets of rain and unbelievably, a metal shopping cart.

&&&&&&&&&&&

They got the hell out of the city as soon as it was clear. The tornado had been small, possibly not even a tornado but just a very high wind at the height of the storm but either way, a shopping cart had ended up in their hotel room.

“A shopping cart, Scully. There was a freaking shopping cart in our hotel room. I mean, it doesn’t beat the cow but still, a shopping cart.” He was bouncing around the passenger seat, still amazed at their unwelcome wake-up call, “if only it had shown up with breakfast.”

The manager, what seemed to be every other guest in the hotel and eventually the police had shown up within a few minutes of the rain stopping, at first most were looking to see how the parking lot had fared but then they noticed the shopping cart hanging out of one of the windows. Scully just wanted to pack up their soaking suitcases, get in the car and leave but they needed to fill out forms and listen to the looping apology of the poor owner who didn’t seem to understand that he didn’t make the tornado, he didn’t fling the cart into their room and he didn’t have to keep apologizing.

Scully, however, nodded politely and let Mulder fill out forms while she impatiently wished she had four Tylenol and a cup of coffee.

Finally, they were on the road, still wearing pajamas, which were the only dry things they had at the moment and heading East, Mulder only quiet when he had an Egg McMuffin in his face. Finishing his two sandwiches, he held her hashbrown out to her, which she took with a soft ‘thanks’, then cruised on in complete silence.

“You sure you’re okay?”

Suddenly, she pulled over into a drug store parking lot, receiving a few long honks from angry drivers but not caring. Putting the Jeep in park, she stared out the windshield for a moment, nibbling on the edge of her hashbrown, “I just need a few minutes of quiet.”

He definitely hadn’t been expecting that and his stomach twisted, “what happened? I mean, beside the chaos and the shopping cart and the jabbering manager? Are you hurt?”

Without a word, she held up her wrist, showing him a scrape, “I’m having a very Duane Barry morning. Between the dream, the breaking window, the storm and now the cut, which is of course in the fucking same spot at the original one, I keep looking in the rearview mirror to check if he’s in the backseat, staring at me with those God-damned dead eyes, waiting to hand me off to a group of assholes who are gonna steal months from me and I’m just really, really rattled right now and completely pissed off that he invaded my morning so freaking thoroughly.”

The most he could do was reach over and rest his hand on her thigh, her own hands wrapped once again tightly around the steering wheel, “want me to drive for awhile?”

A damp chuckle emerged and she looked over at him, “as much as these psychotic cockknobs in our line of work want me dead, I don’t think I need to invite the death by letting you drive. Thank you for the offer though.”

Settling in, he kept his hand on her, his head resting on the corner of his seat, “you are most welcome.”

When she finally took a deep breath, cracked her knuckles, flexed her wrists, shook her head a few times and ran a hand through her tangled hair, she turned the car back on, looking over at him, “you ready to go?”

“As long as it’s with you.”

A genuine smile appeared this time, creasing her cheeks, giving him the erotic hint of a dimple, “14 hours to go.”

“And if you see one cockknob, you run him over and keep driving.”

“I’m not gonna escape that one, am I?”

“Cockknob? Are you kidding? I will be using that at least twice a day and four times every Thursday for the foreseeable future.”

“Thank Charlie for it when we get back. It’s one of his words.”

“One of his words?”

Her eyebrow went up, “he had a lot of them.”

“Tell me another one … please!??”

“No.”

“I’ll give you the Jeep to keep.”

“No.”

“I’ll buy you a house.”

“No.”

“I’ll do an expense report when we get back.”

“Just one?”

Shrugging, “promising any more will just set me up for failure.”

“Poop Noodle.”

“I love your brother.”


End file.
